Donate


Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Major-General Roy Urquhart : the man who knew Arnhem was a bridge too far

This new piece of mine appears in the Daily Express.

ALMOST 70 years after it was sent the telegram from British commander Major-General Roy Urquhart confirming that the Battle of Arnhem was lost has come to light.
The historic message, in which Urquhart says his men are exhausted and cannot continue without urgent military assistance, was stuck on a piece of card with a signed photograph of Field Marshal Montgomery on the reverse and kept in the archive of Monty’s adjutant Captain Noel Chavasse.

Chavasse’s daughter has put the document up for auction in Marlow, Buckinghamshire next week and it has a pre-sale estimate of £400.

You can read the whole article here. 

4 comments:

DBC Reed said...

The big question about Arnhem is whether Captain Lord Carrington was accused of cowardice by T. Moffatt Burriss for not advancing to the Arnhem Bridge after crossing the Waal at Nijmegen.

Neil Clark said...

Great to hear from you, after long time. I hope all's well.
Yes, that's another story altogether.

DBC Reed said...

Surely not an entirely different story?Somebody gave the American paratroopers to understand that if they crossed the Waal in small canvas coracles into the teeth of enemy fire while using their rifles to paddle with, and secured the other end of the bridge at Nijmegen ,the British tanks commanded by Carrington would make a dash for Arnhem (as per plan)They did n't.The question is: did Carrington refuse?
BTW I am now following you on RT ,which, what with Max Keiser and all, is must see television.So less activity on your blog.

Neil Clark said...

Hi - good points.
Will try and increase activity on the blog! Good to hear you're enjoying RT. Best station out there and unsurprisingly the neocons hate it!